NORTH FACE CO-FOUNDER LEFT BUSINESS TO RESTORE WILDERNESS
Douglas Tompkins co-founded The North Face and Esprit, then walked away from business to buy up wilderness in Chile and Argentina.
The story of the clothing mogul turned land conservationist was retold in a profile published April 24, 2026, by Smiley Movement. It traced how Tompkins went from fashion to the wilds of South America.
From fashion to wilderness
Disillusioned with consumerism and its environmental costs, Tompkins stepped away from the corporate world, Smiley Movement reported.
National Geographic reported that he sold his interest in Esprit for $125 million. The North Face had started as a small retail and mail-order business in San Francisco, and he sold it before launching the women’s clothing business that became Esprit.
Tompkins and his wife, Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, then bought wilderness land in Chile and Argentina. Their goal was to restore ecosystems and return the land to public ownership as national parks.
Smiley Movement attributed to Tompkins a blunt view of the work: he saw conservation as “paying rent.”
He also set up the Foundation for Deep Ecology, which backs biodiversity protection and challenges industrial-growth models through grants, publications and advocacy.
Their organization, Tompkins Conservation, coordinated land restoration, species reintroduction and park creation, working with governments. The approach included rewilding and repairing damaged ecosystems.
It was not a smooth ride. Early projects, including Pumalín Park, met skepticism and political resistance. National Geographic reported that his conservation efforts frequently put him at odds with local ranchers and government officials.
By the time of National Geographic’s 2015 report, the land he and his wife had acquired in Chile had reached 2.2 million acres.
What happened next
Tompkins died in 2015 after a kayaking accident in Chile. The North Face said in a statement, “Doug was a passionate advocate for the environment,” and added, “His legacy of conservation will help ensure that there are outdoor spaces to be explored for generations to come.”
The work went on without him. Pumalín was designated a national park in 2018, following a Tompkins Conservation donation toward a park of roughly a million acres.
The United Nations Environment Programme said Kristine McDivitt Tompkins and her partners worked with the Chilean and Argentine governments to create parks spanning millions of hectares. Smiley Movement put the total at more than a dozen parks created or expanded.
Deutsche Welle reported that the handover included Pumalín and Patagonia parks.
On April 26, 2019, Tompkins Conservation formally transferred Pumalín and Patagonia parks to the Chilean state. The transfer completed a 2017 agreement to create new national parks and expand others, using the group’s donation and land contributed by Chile. The parks cover a combined 994,332 acres, and Tompkins Conservation donated 724,853 of them.
